


take a trip (miles away)

by sunsetveins



Series: unfinished works [1]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band), All Time Low, Fall Out Boy, One Direction (Band), Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Fluff, I Tried, M/M, Multi, This Isn't Complete, i don't know anything about london, like dan and phil make no appearances so far, okay so, or cuppas, patrick isn't there yet, so half the tags mean nothing, the rest are at least mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 13:38:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8491891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetveins/pseuds/sunsetveins
Summary: "I don't want to leave," Jack mumbles. Everything is quiet for a moment, and then -"Then don't."Or, the one where Jack goes to London and falls in love. Only trouble is that he's 17 and meant to be back in the states for his finals.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't finished. If it gets some type of response, I may continue it. However, if not, I at least wanted to put it out into the world. Enjoy.

"Bye, mom!" Jack shouts as he closes the front door rather loudly. He grinned to himself as he got settled into his car, the feeling of freedom so close he could almost taste it in all it's glory. Rich and filled with Brits of every kind. He was leaving. He was going to London.

It was a bit inconvenient, seeing as he was still a senior in high school and only 17. Finals were coming up in a week and he had to be back before then, but still. This trip was like the taste of the cold beer his father used to sneak him when his mother was out. This trip was the break he'd been waiting for since forever. 

His mother, ever the one to be concerned with image, had protested until her ears turned red. She wouldn't have ended up letting him go if it wasn't for the simple fact that he was going for Zack.

Zack Merrick, Jack's childhood friend. He was like his mother's second son. For more than 4 years they had been the greatest of friends until the day when Zack had to go back to England, where his parents and friends and his old life still resided. 

His birthday was coming up in a few days and Jack wanted to take a surprise trip out there. It had been another 4 years after all, Zack leaving right at the start of freshman year. He needed to do this.

His mother had softened up a bit when he reminded her of the upcoming date, eventually allowing him a week to go and spend time with Zack. 

He may or may not have forgotten to mention that Zack had no idea he was showing up and he had no clue where it was in London that Zack lived. But really, that was no business of hers anyway. He was 17. He could find his way.

Maybe.

"Ah, sweet freedom," he sighs to himself, pulling out of his driveway and starting towards the airport.

 

-

 

The airport was uneventful. He went through the regular precautions and scans and checks, taking off within the hour. 

There were no babies or annoying seat kicking children. The plane ride had actually been rather peaceful. Jack wasn't exactly sure if he should be grateful or if it was a normal occurrence to have a peaceful flight. Either way though, peaceful or not, he was extremely grateful to be in London once he stepped off the plane.

He'd never felt a greater sense of freedom in his entire life.

It wasn't empty roads glossed over with street lights at three in the morning, or unknown destinations and energy drinks with chocolate bars, but it was this kind of freedom of being somewhere new and not being trapped or held back by someone. It was wonderful.

He just needs to find a way to figure out where Zack lived now.

 

-

 

He finds himself in a bookstore after having given up on finding a way to find Zack that day. He doesn't intend to, but he kind of sprawls out on the floor as he reads a comic book. He hasn't switched his money over yet and he doesn't really have anything to do. What better than to read a comic on the bookstore floor?

People stare at him weirdly, but he can't bring himself to actually care. He almost makes a remark about a free country to them before he realizes this is England and not America. Maybe he's not meant to be on the bookstore floor reading unpaid for comics. Fuck.

He knows it's ridiculous. The store manager would've told him if he weren't allowed to do what he was doing, so he knows he wasn't about to get in any trouble. It was more so the shock of remembering that oh, this isn't America and he doesn't really know what goes here. 

He knows that's what it is, but he still jumps up and runs out of the store, leaving the comic on the ground. Which, admittedly, makes him panic more because what if you weren't allowed to leave stuff on store floors here? (Ridic-u-lous.)

It's as he's rushing down the street, wondering if he's allowed to do that, when he smashes into her. They don't fall, but she grabs his arm at the same time as he grips onto her wrist to keep from doing so. Once they're steady, he looks at her.

She's kind of awesome, he decides.

Her hair is purple with black streaks, bits of candy floss pink laced in it too. Her eyes are dark and she's pale as a ghost, dressed in all black with a single splash of color on her shoes. White with black, classic converse. Her lips are thin and her legs are short, her head just reaching his chin. 

That's not what makes her awesome though. What makes her awesome, Jack had decided, was the lip ring and the Jack Skellington pic hanging on a chain around her neck. What made her awesome was her Green Day shirt and complete lack of makeup. What made her awesome was her Blink 182 belt. 

What made her awesome was the fact that instead of freaking out, she was grinning like a maniac. 

"In a rush or are you just not from here?" she questions, voice laced with something not entirely British and brown eyes tinted with amusement. She's still got a hold on his arm like he does with her wrist. People are walking around them, but unlike that time he went to New York with his father, it's not rudely.

He doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't answer at all.

"The latter, then," she says decidedly. 

He nods, remaining mute. 

"I guess you don't talk much. S'not a problem, I got a friend that's shy, too. We'll break that habit together." She's pulling him somewhere before she even finishes her sentence, and he follows because really, what else is he going to do? 

It's not a long walk before they're in a coffee shop. He watches as she wrinkles her nose, like she doesn't want to be anywhere remotely close to where she is, before she pulls him to a booth in the main back.

She slides in front of him, folding her arms on the table and staring him.

"I'm Katie," she states, "Katie Howell."

She doesn't appear expectant. She just looks at him and smiles. It makes him ease up, so much so that he opens his mouth for the first time since she spoke.

"I'm Jack."

He doesn't offer any last names, doesn't feel like they're too important anyway. Katie doesn't seem fazed by it, just taking it as it was. It's in that moment that he decides that he likes Katie. 

"American, then? You look more Lebanese, if I'm being totally honest." 

"Parents," he offers. She nods.

"Ah. Makes sense."

Things are quiet for a minute, and for some reason Katie looks entirely too pleased by the silence. 

"Is there a reason we're here?" he blurts out, almost cursing himself out when she looks at him with wide eyes.

It's when her face turns pink and her eyes drop to the table when he knows he was right about there being a reason.

"Well, you see. Uh. My best friend and I own this coffee shop a couple blocks away and uh," she mumbles, not finishing her train of thought.

"And this is the coffee shop you compete with?"

At this, she both nods and snorts. He looks at her in confusion, but that only seems to set her off into a full blown laughing fit.

"I don't think I get it," he says. She laughs a little louder, then slowly calms.

"Sorry, sorry," she gasps, "yeah, sorry. It's just, the guy that runs this shop, um. His name is Pete. Get it? ComPETE?" 

He does get it. It's just not that funny.

He makes a mental list of the things he's learned about Katie in this short few minutes.

-She's awesome  
-She's good at reading people  
-She knows a bit about cultural appearance  
-She owns a coffee shop  
-She doesn't expect anything from anyone  
-She likes bad jokes

"Speaking of Pete," she trails off, smirking at something behind Jack's head. Her eyes follow something until there's a dark haired male standing beside the table. 

"Katie," he says. The word isn't tinged with surprise or any type of negative emotion. It sounds more normal, like a statement. A statement laced with unspoken phrases and unacknowledged feelings. Jack feels like he's missing something as he glances between them. 

Katie appears unfazed by his voice. She's just looking at him with dark eyes that dance with sparkles under the dim lights. Her mouth is turned up into something of a smirk and she kind of looks like she's won some sort of prize. Like she's done something she wasn't supposed to be able to do. 

Pete, which is who Jack has come to the conclusion is the man in front of him, kind of looks like he's seen something he didn't expect to see. Except the look doesn't quite seem surprised, more bothered if anything. His eyes, which Jack would describe as whiskey with the way they're such a clear shade of brown, are slightly squinted at the corners. Lips down turned into something of a frown, yet not quite. Jack would probably say that Pete looks tense. Bothered and with an expression made of negativity, Jack would say equals out to tense. Tense and uncertain.

He isn't sure who does what first, but one moment they're staring at each other and the next Pete is turning around and Katie is up and dragging Jack out of the building.

"Where are we going?" 

His question goes unanswered aside from the slight pinch of his wrists from her blunt, painted black nails biting into his skin. It's raining and cold, her shoes splash in puddles and beat against the ground from the force of her steps. Everything is grey and dull browns. He didn't expect freedom to be so bleak and full of confusion.

 

-

 

Her grip so tight around his wrist doesn't ease up until it's been about 5 minutes and they're more than a block away. They don't stop moving until they come upon a white building two stories high and two times the size of the shop they had just been in.

"Kate!" Katie yells as she drags him inside, the bell on the door chiming to an unfamiliar tune. 

Jack notices a few people in the room, but for some reason the room feels empty. Like there's people missing. 

There's a green headed boy behind the counter, one ear bud in and dancing like an idiot with a curly headed blonde. Across the room, sitting on a table top with a guitar, is a blonde with brown roots. He's humming and scribbling things onto a notebook beside of him. On the stairs, which are located almost directly beside the pristine white counter and go up in spirals, there's a girl with straight red hair. It's dark and obviously dyed, but for some reason it seems as if it has always been some tent of red. She's the one of who looks over at Katie. 

Her head tilts and she waves a hand towards Jack, dark eyebrows raising just noticeably. 

"This is Jack," Katie answers like she was verbally asked a question. "He's from America."

"Hm," the girl Jack assumes is Kate hums, "seems more Lebanese than American. Parents?"

Jack nods dumbly, head moving up and down robotically for a longer amount of time than it should've. Kate just smiles with an expression that seems fond while Katie pats his shoulder.

"So," Katie starts as she moves to the counter, "Kate, where is my dearest Ryan?"

"Depends on the one you're looking for. Brendon's or Cass'?" 

Katie jumps up onto the counter, pulling her legs up and sitting cross-legged. She clasps her hands in her lap. "Bren."

"Ah," Kate leans closer to the bars of the stairs, resting her forehead against one of them. She points to a door at the opposite end of the counter. 

"Bren and Ry are in the lounge with Harry. Cass and Rian are with Louis upstairs. They had some sort of fight about moving out. Harry wants to stay, Louis thinks they're burdens. It's all shit, really. Cass feels guilty because she and Rian moved out and that's supposed to have somehow implanted it into Lou's head that he and Haz need to move." While Kate talked, Jack moved to a seat by where Katie was sitting. He listened intently to the conversation. He supposed he was going to be staying around here for awhile, might as well find out what's going on.

Katie frowns, "Why would that make Lou think they need to move out?"

"You know how Bren and Ryan moved out a couple days ago?" 

Katie nods her head, tilting it to the side and furrowing her eyebrows.

"Well, I'm guessing that Louis thinks because Cass and Rian moved out and then Bren and Ry, that it means the couples should move out on their own. Other than Mike and Ash, Lou and Haz are the last couple now. You know how Louis is about stuff like this. When he thinks he's being a burden or that he's not wanted, he acts before he finds out the whole story. This is just Louis being Louis." Kate rolled her eyes with a shrug, shaking her head. Something felt wrong to Jack.

"What, does he think we asked them to move out? That it's a thing? Something that's coming and he wants to beat us to the punch? Because yeah, I do know Louis, and he jumps the gun when he thinks he's going to get hurt. He wouldn't fight with Harry about this if it wasn't because he thought he was about to get screwed over." 

It makes sense in Jack's head, but Kate shakes her head in denial.

"He doesn't think things without reason, and as far as I know he doesn't have any reason to believe that," Kate says dismissively. 

Jack doesn't know why he does it, but he decides to speak up.

"He could've heard you say something? Or maybe one of the others made a joke that he took a bit too literally?" he suggests with a shrug, dark chocolate eyes locking with the mint green of Kate's.

Katie nods enthusiastically, clapping her hands together, "Yeah, yeah! Remember how Bren was being all dramatic and stuff the last night they lived here? How he went around saying-"

"Saying we had kicked them out. Didn't want them anymore because they were too 'loved up.' Fuck." Kate had interrupted Katie, looking as though she wanted to smack herself.

"You know," the green haired boy from behind the counter says, "we should really have a talk with Louis about this. He always takes the wrong things literally."

"Are you volunteering, Michael?" Katie asks with a smirk. The boy, Michael, throws his hands up and backs away from the counter top and into the blonde boy's chest. Jack doesn't know if he should be surprised when the blonde drops a kiss onto the top of Michael's head, but no one makes a comment so he stays quite. They must be 'Mike and Ash.'

It's silent save for the soft strumming of a guitar coming from the other blonde in the back. Jack isn't sure what to do, so he decides the only real option is to stare down at his hands. He only looks up a few minutes later when he hears a clanking noise. 

Kate is walking up the stairs. "M'going to go talk to Lou," she calls.

"Have fun with that!" 'Ash' shouts, laughing to himself as he detaches his arms from around Michael's waist. "I'm making a cuppa, anyone want one? Katie? Jack?"

 

-

 

Jack didn't know what a 'cuppa' was.

This fact caused Katie to laugh at him for a good five minutes before she tilted her head and placed a hand on his thigh, telling him in a soft tone that a cuppa was a lot of different things. With Ashton, who was 'Ash', a cuppa meant hot chocolate. With Michael it was coffee. Kate was tea. Katie didn't really ever say it, just offered to grab someone whatever they want. 

Some people who are not them only have one meaning for cuppa. Tea or coffee. It was British slang, was how she explained it to him. He almost had the urge to ask her if he was allowed to just randomly lay in book store floors reading, but he fought the question down. He was in unfamiliar territory and that meant all of his defenses needed to be up until he was accepted into their little friendship-family. That is, if he stayed here with them. He wasn't quite sure where he was going to go otherwise though, or if Katie had even planned to offer.

It seemed only right that she did though. She did practically kidnap him all because they'd bumped into each other. He couldn't really complain, but still. It stands to reason that it would only be right that she offer him somewhere to sleep for a night.

"Jack?" 

The phrase 'jumping out of your skin' had never seemed so literal until that moment when Ashton interupted his thought process.

"Woah," Ashton's laugh rang clear as a bell, "scare you, did I? Sorry, mate. I was just asking you if you had a place to crash when I noticed you were spaced out. Figured it was an important question with as late as it's getting. I didn't mean to make you jump like that."

Jack's mouth lifted into a half smile, "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"Okay, yeah. But really, do you have a place to stay? There's plenty of space here."

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
